Cognitive inertia is the tendency for a particular orientation in how an individual thinks about an issue, belief or strategy to resist change. In clinical and neuroscientific literature it is often defined as a lack of motivation to generate distinct cognitive processes needed to attend to a problem or issue. The physics term inertia is to emphasize the rigidity and resistance to change in the method of cognitive processing that has been in use for a significant amount of time. Commonly confused with belief perseverance, cognitive inertia is the perseverance of how one interprets information, not the perseverance of the belief itself.